Short Circuitry

photocredit helen ciacciarelli 

holy sons and wandering pistons

pronouncing dedications to combustive structures

enfolded into momentary violence

short circuitry—and doors unhinged

swinging, singing, symphonies at 700mph

syncopated rhythms

bearing the marks of more than two worlds undone

echoes of ordered miscellanies still unwritten

blustering through empty houses

or maybe homes, the transformation nebulous at best

and still the lodgings of countless newts and lovelorn crickets

and the insistent drumming of fingertips on the windowpane

the wallpaper curls, the paint is peeling

off the husks of stillborn memories

the branching copper veins are dormant

yet aching for a spark

(ezra pound spasms in his grave

over such domestic lyricism)

love letters from dead poets shuffled off into some obscure archive

while letters from a new lover are neatly wrapped in twine

and stashed behind the coffee in the cupboard

tidy

aesthetic

compact

is this the beautiful economy of the thing?

coauthored w/ helen ciacciarelli

Ground Shine

Seek a whole new sun,

a heavenly body still magnetically breathing

and breeding oxygen and carbon and bone.

Would I know if I were strangled by aether?

A blanket so cold and tight, crashed on a mountain.

A starry, packed-snow night 

hushed frozen; her eyes open and blue like ice

would *clink* like marbles and bounce.

Glass transitions of spectacular polymer hosts

on a Russian frontier still uncontested and dark.

For now we survive on decay and ground shine—

ancient heat and memories of blinding, towering romance,

whiteless egg, supercritical, expanding—

a perpetual northern latitude dawn.

And even if we turn away or shut our eyes we see it:

an inverted afterimage of a flashbulb pinned east.

a cold morning song

a cold morning song

begins with breathing wood and crawling sun

that falls from evergreen peaks,

drawn down on gravity's hills that crest and valley,

each branch and 'cone struck and frozen

in shadows' contrast and scattered splendor.

Hardy converts from moonlight's convictions

wake and glow and perspire

forgetting dreams of brazen fur swept romance

in beds of leaves and down-feather moss

now rise, knee-spring pad-tread softly

embraced with prints of cool dewed earth.

a cold morning song

percolates walls and floorboards

built and laid in the naughts (never mind this century)

in time with coffee drip and pepper grind twists,

the tink-tink-tink of steel-ceramic swirling

and the smack as rubber gaskets completely kiss.

Arise with hunger of last night's whisper

sweet glitter and glistened waves call—

from distance sharing light, divine or witness

foreign groves that sway in citrus heat

and ache for pollen breezes like

strings of dust in serpentine space.

a cold morning song

ends in echoes and asks to be played again.

Single Crystal Engine

Our fathers perfected the single crystal engine

in the few hours each day not spent shaving

as tribute to the steam eclipsed gods they mirrored

and whose cheeks like polished bronze shields

reflected the advances of copper-topped foes.

They seasoned their morning eggs with arsenic

and cooked all their meals in doorless microwaves,

illuminated by arcs of plasma that wavered and danced

on utensils and drawer knobs throughout the room

all under the plume of boiling countertop orange juice.

If they ever slept,

it must have been in the passing lane.

Fish who toggle brains to keep from drowning

between the accelerator and brake.

(The very world they were best suited for.)

In bars they performed impressions of their upbringing

long hidden drawls of mothers excavated with the tenderest of care

and reverence that would float ghosts to the surfaces 

of crystal clear liquids and long dry tumblers

immaculately stainless and print-free.

The Songs You Wrote

From your bed you wrote another song about bondsmen and boredom
together again in a black and white closeup of backstreet atrocities
cordoned off by tape spitting lawmen whom you DO NOT CROSS
(the last part you sang)
because we’ve all been there
with perfect spheres on course
afraid a turn of the head would mean a failed reentry:
to burn up
or worse (!)
to miss entirely
stuck drifting through the streets
until the glass in the road becomes your starry night.

I’ll echo that a good song is like a house destroyed
and that deep down we just want to pick up the pieces,
see what was hidden in the walls,
and marvel at the confetti of pornographic playing cards
now raining down on this half of Missouri.

Machine of Death -- An Entry Too Late

AMAZING SEX
"So what have you got there? Looks pretty colorful, and how fitting you're using it to paint your cheeks that same red. That's cute. I bet you can barely taste whatever is in there. No, not barely, I bet you can't even taste it at all. It's just as cool and fruity as something your good ol' mom would serve you on a hot summer day. The glass perspiring in a way young kids just don't. Definitely not you.  No no, it was years before you felt the awkward dampness of teenage years. No matter--HEY, TWO MORE OF THESE--you're probably wondering, 'Why two?' well it's amazingly simple and obvious if you think about it. But you didn't come here to think, so you'll have to forgive my assumptions that you'd be inclined to think. Or don't. Really, it doesn't matter. The second is, of course, for me, as it's the quickest way for me to share that taste in your mouth. Which serves dual purposes, I'll let you know. The first being that I'll get to know if that's really something I want. Honestly, who wants to be involved with some putrid, over-sweet mess? Sickening, and the last thing I want to worry about are the calories I'm putting on just sticking my tongue in your mouth. The second is much more subtle and is greatly overlooked by the youthful masses. You see, a lot of people just go right at it, and sure, that has its place. Just like atomic bombs or those triangular bayonets banned by the Geneva Convention. But that's now how you do it if you want to do it right. See, you have to think of it like an airlock. Like you're traversing some great differential and you don't want your eardrums to blow out or your eyes to explode or something equally grotesque and off-putting--so you ease into it. Nice and slow, the change barely noticeable until wait-a-minute… your tongue is halfway down my throat! Haha! Oh, don't act so prudish. I saw your look back there. Yeah, the one you gave me when I was back there with the guys I came in with. And lest I forget, I've got your number right here. No, that's not literally your number, but if you read it I think you'll get my meaning. Printed today. I've got the prick to prove it. Haha, get it? Check the numbers; that's from an official Machine, and you know nobody can fake these things, anyway. Mm, this drink is amazing by the way. ‘Open the pod bay doors, Hal,’ if you know what I mean. Back to the card though. That's right. Now tell me that's not exactly what you want right now? Exactly what you need? Sure, sure--there's no way to be sure that it will be YOU, but when's the next time you get an opportunity like this? Think of the anecdote--the story! Shit, how many people can say they fucked someone's brains out and have an obit they can point to? But whatever, maybe I was wrong to come over here. You know, this drink isn’t even that good. Who would order this, except someone completely out of their league. Someone who really shouldn’t even be at a place like this in this first place. Do you know the bouncer or something? Look, the clock is ticking for me, obviously, and I'm vibing you're not the one anyway. So… what's your friend drinking?"

Tangram Tiger

I see in you the padded battles of matchbox dioramas
sabers drawn to clash harmlessly and dull—
where plastic death reaps over the die-cast and cutouts
sparing, but magnifying the spared ‘til their boots melt together
or their bayonets creep to hang bowed and useless.

There I am, gathering broken arrows on hills of stretched felt
while transatlantic babes stomp and splash in the pooling drops of my dreams.
They’re clocks, so meticulously constructed but flowing
and collecting in the folds of fabric, taut like skin on tribal drums
or the bold taxidermy that keeps your bed warm.

But what echoes in the primal scream of tigers no longer displayed?
Their lowest pitches I can’t hear, but see ghosts register and queue in doubles
readily devoured by aching mouths bound open and tongue tied
as they whisper expository plaques into cool earpieces
and dissolve slowly like communion wafers before their etherial lover.

The management is afraid you’ll steal the souls of the soulless
but I don’t think they considered where you’d keep them
since your bag’s checked and you’re sleeveless,
but they’re right to be cautious near the artificial tall grass
because you’re terrifying in those slimming stripes.